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<title>you can tell that they have forgotten about God by TolkienGirl</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24601468">you can tell that they have forgotten about God</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl'>TolkienGirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [251]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brothers, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Set directly after Maedhros choosing to have Gwindor stay with him, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, also: curufin has been up to no good as we know, and your dog might be betraying you too!, but Celegorm doesn't, title from Siken</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:55:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>645</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24601468</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>World-wise, world-weary, and not his<br/>mother’s favorite, this Jeff will always win when it all comes down to<br/>fisticuffs. Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t always all come down to<br/>fisticuffs. Jeff is thinking about his brother down the winding road be-<br/>hind him. He is thinking that if only he could cut him open and peel him<br/>back and crawl inside this second skin, then he could relive that last mile<br/>again: reborn, wild-eyed, free.<br/>- Richard Siken, You Are Jeff</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Celegorm | Turcafinwë &amp; Curufin | Curufinwë, Celegorm | Turcafinwë &amp; Huan, Celegorm | Turcafinwë &amp; Maedhros | Maitimo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [251]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>you can tell that they have forgotten about God</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He isn’t ten paces down the flagstone hall before he realizes that Huan is not beside him. This is no accident: he did not <em>call</em> for Huan, and so Huan did not come. That means, in a way, that something has changed. Celegorm feels it pressing behind his eyes, the ache that precedes thunderheads and torn skies. A room away, only—ten paces away, only—</p><p>But turning back is impossible.</p><p>Outside his own chamber, the one that was Athair’s before Curufin claimed it and Celegorm chose it as a refuge from Maglor, he stops. Celegorm digs the key from his pocket, grinds it against the lock. Enters.</p><p>Within, a lamp is lit between the cots belonging to himself and Curufin. Curufin is there, too, his chin on his hands. His gaze into nothingness shifts and sharpens, focusing on Celegorm.</p><p>“Oh, it’s you.” Said with disdain, but also a tell-tale tremble underneath. Curufin has been crying.</p><p>Celegorm only shrugs.</p><p>“Thought I wouldn’t see you for hours,” Curufin says. He straightens, dropping his hands behind him, leaning back on them. He looks younger than he did a few hours ago. Sounds younger.</p><p>That is because Celegorm has been talking to Maedhros.</p><p>“He’s awake.”</p><p>Silence. Celegorm knows Curufin calculates before he feels—before he does <em>anything. </em>He’s too exhausted to countenance that scheme, for now. He kicks off his boots. Runs a hand through filthy hair. Thinks about what it means to have a hand. To have a body like <em>before</em>.</p><p>It fills him with hatred. Seething, screaming, searing hatred. Nothing to do with it. He stretches out on the other cot.</p><p>“Is he talking?” Curufin asks, still in that paper-thin, damp voice.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“What did he say?”</p><p>
  <em>Said I was taller. Fucking—six months, murdered him for six months, flayed and burned and—</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Said I was taller.</em>
</p><p>“Nothing much.”</p><p>“Maglor will be disgusting about it,” Curufin says. He moves again, knees canting towards Celegorm across the distance of their cots, but that is all. “He always is, about such things.”</p><p>Curufin is such a spiny, crab-legged thing. Wiry muscle, not solid. Always looking hungry. If it were any comfort for either of them, Celegorm would hug him. Would hold him tight enough to crush him. But there’s no good to be found in bones.</p><p>His hands want Huan. They always do.</p><p>He’s so fucking angry, for no reason at all.</p><p>“Maglor can find him for himself.” And there, he’s said too much. Curufin says,</p><p>“Did he not want you?”</p><p>“It’s not like that.”</p><p>“It’s not like anything,” Curufin points out. “Do you really think he could be himself…looking like that?”</p><p>Curufin hasn’t even seen him. Hasn’t touched him. Celegorm did. Touched him while he slept; even touched some of the scars. Celegorm held his hand when he woke. Looked into his eyes. Heard him say,</p><p>
  <em>Forgive me.</em>
</p><p>Then heard him call a stranger’s name instead of a brother’s.</p><p>“It’s not natural,” Celegorm mutters, forced to listen to his own heart without Huan’s pulse to match it to. “They just tortured him. What reason in hell? What—”</p><p>“What reason? It was for Athair, of course.”</p><p>“Athair’s dead.” Two can be cruel, here. In this dead room.</p><p>Curufin falls silent. That isn’t like him, not to return pain with pain, and do it quickly.</p><p>Where <em>was</em> Curufin, all this time? Somehow, Celegorm lost him.</p><p>“Listen,” he says. And in hearing his own rough voice, he tries to hear Maedhros’. Maedhros’ voice as it was, before it was reedy and raw. “Tomorrow we’ll clear them out. Our cousins. We’ll—we’ll face it like…” It is bitter, to speak so, but for—for <em>something</em>, he must. “We’ll face it like Athair would have wanted us too.”</p><p>Curufin smiles. It is—sore, that smile. As sore as Maedhros’ poor eyes and mouth. Curufin says,</p><p>“You don’t have to lie to me.”</p>
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